


there's a blue light in my best friend's room

by jugheadjones



Series: blue light [2]
Category: Riverdale (TV 2017)
Genre: Angst with a Happy Ending, Anorexia, Childhood Friends, Eating Disorders, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Recovery
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-06-27
Updated: 2018-06-27
Packaged: 2019-05-29 04:54:57
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 8,987
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15065588
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/jugheadjones/pseuds/jugheadjones
Summary: After his first year of university, Hal Cooper comes home to Riverdale for spring break. With Alice working in Boston, FP in the army, Mary on a different school schedule, and Hiram and Hermione in New York, the only person left to hang out with is Fred Andrews.He and Hal haven’t been close since they were in sunday school together, but Hal’s sick of his parents and needs someone his own age to talk to. What he doesn’t expect is to find out that his once confident, carefree friend has turned into a shell of his former self. What he definitely never expected was to find out Fred hasn’t been eating since the summer.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> BIG, BIG TRIGGER WARNING. 
> 
> Please take care to filter your experience online, especially if you're sensitive to the issues I'm discussing here! 
> 
> I've been writing this in fits and starts for over a year and I kinda needed it out of my system. I've split it into chapters so it's not a lot of awfulness at once. 
> 
>  [Project Heal](https://www.theprojectheal.org/)
> 
> [Beat Eating Disorders UK](https://www.beateatingdisorders.org.uk/recovery-information)
> 
>  
> 
> [National Eating Disorders Association](https://www.nationaleatingdisorders.org/where-do-i-start-0)
> 
>  
> 
> [resource list of links to eating disorder organizations and websites](https://www.eatingdisorderhope.com/information/resources-for-anorexia-bulimia-and-binge-eating-disorder)
> 
>  
> 
> [physical signs and symptoms of eating disorders](https://www.nationaleatingdisorders.org/toolkit/parent-toolkit/physical-signs)
> 
>  
> 
> and title from mazzy star's "blue light"

Hal comes home in the spring and settles back into life with his parents as if he had never left it. He feels different than he had when college had begun in September: more _educated_ , whatever that meant, and more comfortable in his own skin, but something about sleeping in his old blue-and-cream room again made him feel oddly young, like he was a child playing dress-up in an older boy’s clothes.

To his dismay, a part-time job shelving books at their campus library had kept Alice in Boston during their break, and Hal’s parents wouldn’t hear of him spending his week off anywhere but his hometown. Privately, Hal had been glad at their stubbornness. He hadn’t been home for a weekend since Christmas, and he’d missed his parents in an awful, secret way that he never told Alice about.

It takes until the fourth day for Hal to grow subtly sick of their overbearingness. Upon reaching this point, he’d begun to wish more of his friends were home. Hal had been dismayed to learn that Mary’s school had an entirely different week off for spring break, and that Hiram and Hermione had no intention of coming back from New York at all.

It wasn’t until then that he’d remembered Fred was still at home, and felt a little guilty for not having visited him before. Artie wasn’t doing well, Prudence had warned him, and Hal had felt slightly sick at the thought of ignoring Fred when he needed him the most.

“Where’s my jam?” Prudence fusses now, intent on re-arranging the cupboard above the sink from her perch on a buttercup-coloured step-stool. “I had seven jars up here. Lewis!” she calls, lifting her eyes briefly to the ceiling above them, where Hal can hear his father’s shower running.

“Mom, Fred doesn’t want jam.”

“And have his mother think I sent you over empty handed? With Artie the way he is?” Prudence smiles as she uncovers two jars of brightly-labelled jam from the back of the cupboard. “Here we are. I’ll make a card and we can wrap these right up.”

Hal sighs and turns his attention to his breakfast, mopping up the last of the maple syrup with the crust of his french toast. He debates on how much fruit he’s supposed to finish from the bowl his mother had doled out. Spears a slice of cantaloupe off the top.

“You two used to be such good friends,” Prudence complains, as she sets two cellophane-wrapped jars of jam next to her son. “Sleepovers every Saturday. Scrabble tournaments. He helped you put together that puzzle of the night sky. I’ll never understand why he stopped coming around.”

Hal resists the urge to tell her - _again_ \- that he and Fred haven’t been close since the third grade. Since Fred stopped going to church, and Hal stopped going to Scouts and accepted the fact he’d never be able to throw a baseball very hard. At age nineteen, with Hal away at college and Fred hauling concrete back home, they probably have less than ever in common.

“Ah well,” sighs his mother, intent on pouring orange juice. “That’s the way it is, isn’t it? The shifting tide of teenage friendship. I remember it well.”

Hal tunes her out. Maybe it was the solitude of being the only one back for vacation in a town that felt too empty, but he’s suddenly impatient to see Fred again. He scarfs down two more pieces of fruit and pushes his chair out.

“Give his mother my love,” says Prudence properly, as though she hadn’t just spent the past hour regaling Hal with stories of every indiscretion Mrs. Andrews had committed since he’d left, from her wilting flower beds to her store-bought bake sale contribution and unsigned Christmas cards.

“I will,” Hal promises, snatches up the jam, and hurries out the door.

* * *

 

The white house hasn’t changed much since Hal used to get dropped off for primary school sleepovers, and he knocks lightly at the front door, refraining from using the bell in case Artie was asleep. He notes the dead flowers on either side of the garden - his mother had been absolutely appalled by the state of Mrs. Andrews’ garden, he remembers. Hal thinks she’s being a little monstrous about it. In an unusually warm spring, it was hard to keep them blooming. Probably harder still, when your husband was on death’s door. But Prudence Cooper had never been known for her generosity.

“Oh! Hal!” exclaims Mrs. Andrews when the door swings open, her tired face lighting up with genuine surprise. Hal had always had a good rapport with people's mothers. “It’s you, isn’t it? Look at you! Your mother told me you were coming home. It’s so nice to see you! Come in.”

She keeps her voice quiet enough that Hal sensed he must have been right about Fred’s father being asleep. He steps in carefully. Mrs. Andrews lets the screen door swing shut and turns to face him, relieving him at last of the jam.

“Don’t you look scholarly.” Her eyes are kind as ever, but her smile is stretched just a tad too tight to be genuine. Still, her demeanour puts him at ease. “Tell your mother thank you for me. How’s school going? Fred’s going to be so happy you’re here. He doesn’t see a lot of his friends anymore. You’re all over the place. How are you liking it? How’s Alice?”

Hal assured her that yes, he loves his school, and yes, Alice is doing all right. Then he forces himself to ask the question he’s been dreading, but that politeness demands.

“How’s Mr. Andrews?”

Fred’s mother smiles again, as though she’d expected the question and has been looking forward to her turn at a carefully rehearsed answer. “We’re making him comfortable,” she replies, and Hal thinks with a pang that she must have had to say the same thing to at least half the people in their town when all she must really want to do was tell them to shut up. “But you’re here for Fred, aren’t you? I’ll go get him. He’s just lying down,” Mrs. Andrews says. “He just got off work.”

Hal stays obediently put as Mrs. Andrews climbs the stairs, a dull flicker of excitement starting in his chest, expecting Fred to appear at any moment, older and more muscular than Hal would remember him, suntanned or burnt and with dry concrete smeared on the legs of his jeans. He was dying to hear the stories about the job site - he knew Fred would have some, and truth be told, there were days he was a little envious of Fred for having a real job. _How does it feel to be working for a living_ , he wants to ask. _How does it feel to be miles ahead of the rest of us, struggling through first-year assignments? What’s happening around here since we all cleared out?_

The questions die on his lips when he hears footsteps on the stairs. His first thought is that Mrs. Andrews has just led a complete stranger down the staircase. His next is that everything he’s been told about Artie is wrong, and it’s Fred who’s dying.

“Coop?” Fred asks. His face splits into a grin, and for a split-second, Hal sees the face he had hoped for. But then the tiredness replaces it and Fred’s almost unrecognizable to him - so thin that Hal can count the bones in his neck, the pallid skin of his face drawn waxen and taut over his skull. He has a ball cap turned backward on his head, obscuring all Hal can see of his hair - if he has any. Hal’s stomach turns over.

Hal remembers to smile at him a millisecond too late. His eyes are drawn to Fred’s wrists, oddly blue and swollen on arms that look like Hal could break them with a squeeze. He swallows.

“You look different,” is all Hal can manage, his tongue sticking to the roof of his mouth.

“So do you.” Fred approaches him unselfconsciously, possibly unaware of how small he looks, the way the tendons jump out in his throat when he talks. Hal blinks furiously, willing the image to disappear.

“Freshman fifteen,” Hal replies, embarrassed that he’s gained weight when Fred is so slight. He has to fight an involuntary shiver of revulsion when Fred slips into his arms for a hug. His back is all bone and rib and shoulder blade. It makes him think, a little horribly, of his grandmother’s ancient, terrifying housecat and how prominent the ridges of its spine had been under its stiff coat. How secretly relieved he’d been when Prudence had brought him for a visit one Easter and the cat hadn’t been there anymore.

“God, Fred, you’re skinny,” Hal can’t stop himself from muttering as he lets go. Fred gives him an awkward, bemused smile that tells him Fred has no idea how much weight he’s lost.

“Why don’t you boys go out and get some fresh air?” Mrs. Andrews is hovering by the stairs. She keeps her voice low. Hal wonders how she can stand there beaming at them when her son looks like a Halloween decoration.

“And don’t worry about when you get back,” Mrs. Andrews urges. “Fred. We can do dinner without you. Go enjoy yourselves.”

Hal feels like there are ants crawling up the back of his neck. He forces his mouth to move.

“How’ve you been?” he asks stiffly, and Fred smiles.

“Okay. How about you?”

“Let’s get food,” Hal blurts out, forgetting the fact he’s just eaten, and scrambles to save face when Fred looks surprised. “I’ve missed Pop’s. Boston food is good, but I haven’t had a really good burger in a long time. Or a shake. Let’s get a shake.”

Fred laughs tiredly, and Hal’s heart breaks as violently and as irretrievably as if he’d dropped it. Fred’s mother is smiling too. They both look so hopeful, and Hal feels his throat close in abrupt sadness and distress.

“Okay,” Fred says, and Hal swallows a frightened lump in his throat that feels as hard as a stone.

* * *

The meal is as awkward as Hal had expected, but for reasons he never could have anticipated. Despite the heat, Fred pulls his jacket tighter around him when they enter the diner. Hal had watched him take it out of the closet and zip it up to his chin as though it were winter before they’d left the house. He waits for Fred to take the jacket off, but Fred only shoves the sleeves a little way up his forearms before leaning over the table. His arms are so thin that the sleeves slide back down immediately.

“I haven’t had a Pop’s burger in ages,” Hal enthuses, to break the silence. He takes his eyes off Fred for a moment to look around at the decor, as old and familiar as anything that had been in his childhood home. He knows he’s being silly - it hasn’t even been a year - but he’s missed this place. “You must eat here a lot. Before work, right?”

“Right,” replies Fred unconvincingly.

“How’s working?”

“I like it,” Fred replies easily. “It’s the same job I’ve had since high school. But I’m a bit more senior now, so I get paid better.” He shoves one of his sleeves up. It slides back down. Hal looks away as a waiter approaches them.

“What are you getting?” Hal asks lightly.

Fred glances at the menu without reading a thing. “Burger, I guess,” he says without enthusiasm.

“Two double burgers,” Hal tells their waiter. “And a big side of fries - I’ll pay,” he adds, when Fred glances up at him. “I’ll have a chocolate shake, and-”

“Strawberry shake,” Fred finishes, and Hal relaxes a tiny bit, relieved that Fred’s at least putting ice cream in his body. “To-go, please. And you can bring me the check.”

“Fred-”

Fred smiles at him, and Hal’s thrown by the sincerity of it. He hadn’t realized they were all as close as that. “I’ve got a job. You haven’t. I’m paying. Save it for your student loans.”

“Thanks,” says Hal, embarrassed.

“You’re liking school?” Fred leans over the table a bit to be closer to him, tired but earnest, and Hal’s suddenly struck by a very old memory: the two of them with drinks after a grade-school soccer practice, Ricky Mantle annoying them from a table behind, a six-year-old Fred leaning forward to sip out of Hal’s cola without permission. With relief, he notices the few strands of brittle hair that slip free from the ball cap at the back of his neck.

“I do. It’s cool.”

“How’s Alice?” Fred asks immediately, and Hal smiles, a gold bubble of happiness filling the dark part in his chest.

“She’s great. We’re great.” Their milkshakes arrive, and Fred immediately pushes his away. Hal’s heart sinks.

“Aren’t you going to drink that?” He keeps his tone light.

“Not for me. My dad likes strawberry.” Fred draws a line through the condensation on the to-go cup. “Pop’s milkshakes are one of the only things he can still have.”

Hal’s chest squeezes. “So, what have you been doing for fun?” he urges. His voice sounds obnoxiously bright to his own ears. “What’s new in Riverdale?”

“Well..” says Fred carefully, shredding his napkin. “I work. Um. It’s kind of long hours.”

“Right,” says Hal awkwardly.

“We’re laying the foundation for a senior’s home,” says Fred, to fill the silence.

“Sounds cool.”

“And I help with my dad a lot.”

“Right.” Hal racks his brain for another avenue of conversation. He dodges the question of Hiram and Hermione, sensing it might be a touchy topic. He brings up baseball, and just for a moment, the light comes back to Fred’s eyes.

“It’s gonna be a good season, isn’t it?”

“I haven’t had time to watch,” Hal admits.

“I’ll give you the highlights. So this month -”

Their burgers are brought out, and Fred suddenly shrinks, abandoning his recap mid-sentence. He looks uneasily at the food that’s placed in front of him as though he has no idea what to do with it. Hal takes a bite of his own and watches Fred take the tiniest bite of his hamburger bun. Chews it as though it’s painful.

“Are you and Mary still together?” Hal asks once he’s swallowed.

Fred nods, putting his burger back on his plate. Hal nudges the fries imperceptibly closer to him. “We split when she left for college. Just in case long distance was too much. But she’s not seeing anyone. We still write and say I love you and stuff.”

“That’s good,” says Hal hopefully. “Does she like it?”

“Loves it.” Fred smiles tiredly. “She’s really happy. She says this one prof wrote her a reference letter for a job, and it’s the nicest thing she’s ever read about herself.”

He chatters about Mary’s program for a minute, which gives Hal an excuse to leap into a story about Alice berating the admissions officer for spelling Hal’s name wrong. Fred laughs in all the right places, and for a moment it’s like the meal had never been awkward. Hal forgets to look for the dark circles under Fred’s eyes, or at the untouched meal on his plate. Fred’s cracking a joke about Mary’s new roomate when Hal remembers something he’d forgotten to ask.

“FP’s still in the army, right?”

Fred freezes, tensing up completely as though caught in a lie. “Yeah.”

“How’s it treating him?” Hal asks, curious. He licks some sauce from his fingers. “You two must write.”

Fred quietly sets the only French fry he’s touched back on his plate, and Hal watches him do it with a queasy pang of regret. “Not really.”

“You don’t send letters?”

“We’re not really friends anymore,” says Fred carefully, and Hal feels oddly like he’s been scooped out. Fred and FP were one of the constants of the universe. It seems inexplicable that they could be anything but close.

“I’m sorry,” Hal apologizes. “I didn’t know.”

Fred shrugs. Hal watches his collarbones move under his skin. Taking one last sip from his chocolate shake, he pushes it toward his friend.

“Fred, I can’t finish this. You want some?”

Fred drags the milkshake toward himself slowly, as though the glass weighs thousands of pounds. He takes a shaky sip from Hal’s straw and wipes his mouth.

“It’s good,” he says, and pushes it back. The smile trembles on his face like it’s an effort to hold it there.

“You’re not hungry?” Hal asks.

Fred shakes his head.

“Not what I expected from the rhubarb pie eating champion of Riverdale High,” Hal teases weakly, hoping Fred can’t hear the quiet desperation in his tone. Fred smiles, but it doesn’t reach his eyes.

“Long time ago,” says Fred, and then clears his throat. “That was a long time ago.”

Hal looks down at the table and racks his brains for a plan. All he can think of is that he needs Fred to eat: enough, and as soon as possible. Beyond that, he’s in over his head.

“Fred, would you come over for dinner with me and my family tonight? Please?” Hal forces what he hopes is a sympathetic grimace. “My parents are kind of driving me bonkers. I’d love to have another person in the house.”

Fred looks down. One of his hands has made its way to his stomach, pressing in. “I don’t know.”

“Please?” Hal knows he’s being annoying, but he doesn’t care. “If you won’t let me pay for my burger, I owe you one. And my mom is absolutely dying to see you.”

“I’m pretty tired, Hal.”

Hal breathes in, knowing he’s about to be a colossal jerk. Sucks a deep breath in and goes for it.

“Come on,” he urges, hating himself. “When’s the next time you’re going to see me? I really wanna be friends again. Like old times. You can come for a bit, right?”

He holds his breath as Fred thinks about it. He has both his arms hooked around his stomach now, frowning at his plate.

“Fred?”

“Sure,” says Fred awkwardly as Hal exhales, eyes straying to Hal’s plate, his own, and the EXIT sign above the door. “Whatever you want.”


	2. Chapter 2

Fred shows up for dinner in a heavy knitted sweater, even though it’s warmer in the late-evening sun than it’s been all week. His hair looks thin and brittle without the ball cap. Prudence lays out one of Hal’s favourite meals: a steaming roast with buttery baked potatoes, sweet potato casserole, sauteed vegetables and a spring salad with cranberries. There’s more food on the table than four people should be able to eat. Hal wonders morbidly how much of it they’re going to be throwing out after.

Fred tries to eat. Hal can tell he’s trying. He thanks Hal’s mother for the food and methodically moves forkfuls of dinner to his mouth as the rest of the family is eating around him. But he’s tense and shaky, and only a minuscule amount of food is finding its way to his mouth. It takes him several minutes to chew each bite. Hal’s watching him so closely he keeps missing his mouth.

“After dinner, Fred, you’ll have to tell us how your mother is doing,” Prudence is saying.

“Actually,” Hal jumps in before Fred can agree, “we were going to go for a bike ride after dinner. Right, Fred?”

Fred shares a secret look with Hal that reminds him too much of their youth. “Right.”

“Hm.” Prudence sips her water. “Well, you’ll use Gertrude’s bike, won’t you?

“Yes, mom.”

“In that case, you’ll have to inflate the tires. We haven’t had them out since last spring. Do you know where the pump is?”

Hal glances at Fred again. “Yes, mom.”

“Well, have Lewis help you if you need it. Fred, dear, didn’t you get any meat?”

“So, tell us about the baseball career, Fred,” says Lewis, saving Hal from having to watch Fred struggle with a baked potato.

“Ah- right.” Hal can feel the awkwardness in his friend’s hesitance. Fred glances at him nervously before looking back at his father. “Well, I was only down there for one day of tryouts-”

“What team is this?” Prudence interrupts him.

“The Greendale team,” says Fred, looking down at his still-full plate. “Class A.”

“Minor Leagues,” translates Lewis, nodding importantly. “Go on.”

“You went to watch tryouts?” Hal asks. “You didn’t tell me that.”

“I didn’t watch,” Fred admits, toying with the skin of the potato. Hal notices he’s been eating in order around his plate. “They asked me to try out.”

“WHAT?” yells Hal, his knee accidentally bashing into the underside of the table. The saltshaker jumps.

“Harold, where are your manners?” His mother scolds. Hal ignores her, rubbing his knee.

In another life, Fred would have got a chuckle out of _Harold_. Instead, his eyes just float to Hal before moving back to Lewis’ face.

Hal sits and watches as his dad grills Fred about every detail of the tryouts. Fred has one hand protectively in the middle of his stomach the whole while. Every now and then he winces as though he’s in pain. Neither of his parents seems to notice. Hal feels like he’s on another planet.

“Excuse me,” Fred says at some point, and stands up, pushing his chair in. Hal watches him leave in the direction of the bathrooms. The carpeted stairs creak as he climbs them.

Lewis and Prudence start talking about a church fundraiser. Hal waits for as long as he possibly can.

“Excuse me,” he says finally, and throws his napkin down on the chair.

* * *

Fred is standing on the Coopers’ old-fashioned white scale in their pink and white upstairs bathroom. He barely glances up when Hal forces his way through the door.

“Your scale’s off,” he mutters as he gets off.

Hal steps on it and watches the familiar numbers rush between his feet. The needle flickers up those extra fifteen pounds and stays there. As far as he knows, it’s accurate. Prudence had dragged him to the doctor’s for a checkup almost the moment he’d stepped off the bus.

“Fred-“

Fred’s turned away from him, his arms drawn tight around his middle, facing the window. Hal’s _why didn’t you tell me you were drafted for class A_ dies on his tongue.

“My mom’s serving up dessert,” says Hal hopefully, instead. “Can you eat a little more?”

“Hurts my stomach,” says Fred, pressing his arms tighter into himself.

Hal recognizes the gesture from Pop’s. “Does it always hurt after meals?”

“Most of the time.”

“Fred, you could have an ulcer or something-“

“I don’t.”

“Well, why haven’t you got it checked out? How do you know?”

“I just know,” Fred replies stubbornly.

Hal runs through a list of terrifying diseases in his head that might account for Fred’s weight loss. None of them are encouraging. “You can’t know that. You could be seriously sick.”

Fred opens his mouth like he’s going to snap at him, but then stumbles. His pale face goes even whiter, and Hal hurriedly helps him sit down on the fluffy toilet cover.

“Hey. You’re okay. Put your head between your legs.”

Fred does, obeying without question. Hal rubs his back, avoiding the places where his spine juts out along his neck.

“Fred?” He waits until Fred lifts his head and looks at him. “You don’t eat a lot, do you?”

Fred looks resolutely away, his jaw set. His eyes are sparkly with tears.

“Fred?” Hal urges again, wondering if this was supposed to happen all along, if he’d been meant to pull this out of him, or if it was an accident that he was here. Knows it should be someone else doing this, Mary, or his mother, or anyone. Anyone but Hal.

“I’m not trying to put your business out there,” he says awkwardly. “Just, if you need help-”

Fred draws in a long, shaky breath.

“I need help.” His voice is so small it’s hardly there. Hal can barely breathe.

“What do your parents think?” Hal tries to ask, gently.

“Dad’s kind of past the point where he can notice,” says Fred, engaged in a staring contest with the tile floor. “And mom’s busy with Dad.”

“You’re telling me they haven’t noticed?”

Fred looks away, shuddering. His arms are still wrapped tightly around himself.

“Fred, do you feel sick? Do you want to go home?”

“No,” breathes Fred. His knee twitches anxiously upward, rubbing against the toilet seat. “It’d be rude. I wanna go biking.”

“Fred, I’ll tell them whatever you want. I’ll tell them something stupid, it doesn’t matter. Just tell me you’re okay.”

Fred’s voice is small, trembly. It cracks and breaks like old porcelain. When he speaks his words are scarcely there, directed to the wall rather than Hal’s face. “I know it’s stupid and fucked up but sometimes it’s like- I tell myself if I don’t eat anything, then it’ll make FP come home. If I just control what I eat for a week, then he’ll come back and be safe. And then it turns into two weeks, and then-”

Hal puts his arms around him before he can stop himself, drawing him closer. “When did this start, Fred?”

“The summer.”

“For that long?”

Fred nods, his eyes full of shame. “For that long.”

“Fred, it’s not your fault. You didn’t know what you-”

“I knew, Hal. Look at me. I’d be stupid not to know. It hurts to sit down. And laying down on my side at night- I can’t do that either. My hair’s falling out. I _know_.”

Hal’s knees are starting to ache from crouching. He sits down, keeping his palm on Fred’s skin.

“Why can’t you tell yourself the opposite? Tell yourself if you eat again, it’ll keep him safe.”

“It doesn’t work like that!” Fred snaps.

“It doesn’t work at all!” All the frustration and guilt that’s been inexplicably building in him since dinner fizzles over. “It doesn’t work like anything! You’re delusional. You’re killing yourself!”

He wants Fred to yell back. Cry. React. But Fred just looks away.

“I’m sorry,” breathes Hal. “I didn’t mean to yell.”

Fred ignores him.

Hal squeezes his hand. “Fred, you have to tell someone.”

Fred is grabbing at the collar of his sweater, his breathing laboured. “Can we go outside?” he breathes out.

“Yeah. Yeah, I’ll take you home.”

Fred shakes his head furiously. “I want to stay with you. I want to go biking.”

“Fred-”

“Please-” begs Fred. “I need to be outside. Can we please just go on a bike ride and forget about it?”

* * *

“I’ll come with you,” Hal offers. “If you want someone with you. When you tell your mom.”

Fred ignores him. Once they were outside he’d insisted on helping Hal retrieve the bikes from the garage and had simultaneously decided to give him the cold shoulder. He finishes pumping Hal’s back tire and screws the cap back on the wheel.  

“Fred are you listening to me at all?”

Fred stays stubbornly silent. Hal gives up and wheels out Gertrude’s old bike, which Fred climbs on eagerly when he sees the flower-patterned basket. Fred laughs when he struggles with the backpedal - a real, honest laugh - and it cuts through Hal’s guts like a carving knife.

“I can call my sister. She’d know more about this. She can get the number of a specialist.”

Fred pushes off from the curb and bikes in a lazy circle. “I don’t want to talk about it right now.”

“Fred-” Hal watches helplessly as Fred bikes past him, ringing the tinny bell on Gertrude’s handlebars. “Why didn’t you tell me about the baseball tryouts?”

Hal watches as he bikes off down the cul-de-sac, his stomach twisting painfully. Then Fred circles back around and backpedals effortlessly to brake next to the curb.

“Hal?” he asks, his voice remarkably normal. “Can we talk about when we get back?”

Hal sucks in a deep breath and then lets it out. “Yeah. If you want. Yeah.”

* * *

Fred lets him take the lead, and Hal takes him slowly through the streets of his old neighbourhood, following the routes he used to bike as a kid. It feels strange to be performing such a childhood ritual at his age. The lilacs are out, and the smell of them pervades the after-dinner coolness of his suburb. Hal is overcome by a brief, cloying tickle of nostalgia, a wish for his children to live here someday, to bike through these streets in the evening.

He’s lost in this reverie when a crash of metal-on-metal from behind him interrupts his train of thought. Hal brakes hard, shooting a foot down, and smacks himself in the ankle with his bike pedal. Turning himself and his bike around with one leg, he scuffs his tire through the gravel, making a loud ugly scraping noise and almost running over his shoe.

Fred and his bike are on the pavement, Fred tugging roughly on the handlebars as he tries to extricate himself from the metal frame. One of the wheels spins uselessly. Hal’s heart skips several beats- with Fred in the state he was in, twisting a leg the wrong way would probably land him in a hospital. But Fred only yanks his bike up to its wheels with the briefest flash of his old childhood elasticity and hops back on, even though Hal can see red streaming down his leg from his knee.

“Fred!”

Fred ignores him, pushing down hard on the pedal and whipping past his friend, wobbly on a too-small bike, ignoring Hal’s cries of protest.

“I’m fine, Hal,” he calls over his shoulder. “Let’s keep going.”

“You need help!” Hal calls after him, no longer sure if he’s just talking about the wreck, but Fred’s only response is to stand up on his pedals, coasting farther away from him.

Hal climbs back on his bike, noting with displeasure the long grey scuff mark across one of his nicer pairs of shoes. Fred is already around the corner, and Hal huffs as he steps on the pedals, breathing hard as he tries to keep pace with his friend.

He catches up to him at the park near their old grade school. A long, winding bike path leads along the crest of a hill, a baseball diamond sitting below them in the field. Rather than follow the path, Fred jerks his bike to the side, cresting down the grassy hill toward the diamond at top speed. Hal squeezes his own handlebars tight, jerking himself to a stop at the crest of the hill. Fred streaks down the grass, tires shuddering as he picks up speed, his front tire pointed toward the chain-link fence separating the infield from the dugout without any sign of stopping.

Hal drops his bike to the side and starts running after him, his chest feeling tight enough to burst. His sneakers slip on the rugged grass, and for a panicked moment, he thinks he’s going to fall. For all the good it does Fred, he might as well have.

Fred seems to remember his backpedal at the last moment and brakes as he hits dirt, too late to actually slow himself down. With a spray of red dirt, the bicycle slices a curve in the face of the diamond, crashing over sideways and dumping Fred off in a heap. Fred hits the dust with a thud that should have cracked his newly-fragile body like old wood, rolls over, and somehow finishes sitting up, drawing his knees up to his chest around the place you’d lay home plate. Hal’s heart is slamming into his lungs like a jackhammer. Struggling not to trip, he lets gravity carry him down until his shoes hit the dust, jogging anxiously through the red dirt as he tries to neutralize his momentum.

“Fred,” Hal gasps, really wishing he had his inhaler now, and drops to his knees beside him. Apart from the trickle of blood from his skinned knee, Fred looks completely unharmed. He’s staring out from home plate with a blank expression on his face, and he has the sleeves of his big sweater pulled over his hands.

Hal reaches out to touch him but can find nothing physically wrong: Fred had wiped out with the same careless abandon he’d had in childhood and had somehow suffered none of the consequences. Fred hides his face in his knee and Hal realizes his friend is crying.

“Fred, are you hurt?”

Fred shakes his head, squeezing his eyes shut as he cries harder, his chest hitching miserably as he curls himself into a ball. Hal wraps his arms around him before he can stop himself and pulls him in against him. He runs a hand anxiously through Fred’s thin hair, smoothing it back from his forehead.

Fred shakes under him, and Hal can feel every bone through the knit fabric of Fred’s sweater. He seems to be made of all angles, all sharp framework. A ragged sob bursts out of Fred’s mouth, and Hal squeezes him tighter than before, pressing the angles of his body tighter into his skin.

Hal buries his face in his back and holds him as he falls apart.

* * *

 

Hal waits in the front hall as Fred approaches the doorway of Artie’s room. 

“Mom?” Hal hears him ask softly. “Can I talk to you?” 

They sit slightly apart from each other in the living room, Hal in the recliner and Fred on the edge of the couch. When Mrs. Andrews joins them she takes a chair across the room, so that the three of them form a triangle. 

Fred sits himself on the sofa, facing inward. Hal is struck by the aloneness of him, the solitude and stubborn courage he projects without anyone by his side. 

He closes his eyes. “You have to promise not to send me to the place you did when I was sixteen.” 

Hal is frozen. Mrs. Andrews half-rises from the sofa, and then sits again. Fred looks directly at her. 

“It’s not-” Fred struggles, and tries again. “It’s not what you think. I have an eating disorder,” he says finally, the toughness in him so palpable that Hal’s stomach hurts. “I know I do. And I need  _ - _ help. So please-” 

Mrs. Andrews’ eyes fill with tears. Her mouth drops open as if to speak, but she says nothing. Fred wilts a bit under her gaze, shrinking smaller into himself. He sucks his bottom lip into his mouth and bites down. 

Hal can’t take him being alone anymore and quickly rises from his chair, sinking down close to Fred’s tiny frame and slipping an arm around him. He’s over-aware that this had once been the position he’d occupied when he and Alice had told his parents she was pregnant, and his stomach churns at the memory. 

“Don’t tell Dad,” Fred croaks, a tear winding down his cheek. “He doesn’t need to know. I just need help, and then - it’ll be okay, I promise. Mom, don’t cry.” 

Mrs. Andrews kneels in front of him, cups his face gently in both her hands. “Fred,” she whispers. Hal looks away. 

“I’m sorry,” Fred whispers, his head bowed into his mother’s touch, his voice throbbing, raw and scarcely-there in the stillness of the room. Tears flood his words as he breaks down, his voice shaking as he apologizes into his mother’s neck. “I’m sorry,” he sobs, “I’m sorry, I’m sorry. I’m so sorry. I’m sorry.”

Hal balls both fists into his lap until his knuckles go white. 


	3. Chapter 3

Hal bikes to the Andrews house the next morning, because his mother needs the car later in the day. Mrs. Andrews has called a nurse for Artie so she can take Fred to a specialist. Fred drinks two-thirds of a bottle of one of his father’s meal replacements and shoves it away from him. 

“Fred, drink that.” 

“It tastes like ass,” says Fred, and his mother looks shocked. 

“Fred Andrews!”

Hal’s so surprised that he laughs, stifling it immediately with his hand. Fred turns to him, a flicker of that same childish look on his face, like they’re eight years old and speaking their own secret language. “Try to drink it,” Hal urges, and the smile leaves Fred’s eyes. 

“Or eat something,” his mother urges, her voice too gentle. Hal sees Fred’s defenses come up. “A piece of fruit.” 

Fred takes three bites of a banana and refuses to eat anymore, shoving the fruit across the table and folding his arms protectively over his middle. 

“I’ll cut it up,” Mrs. Andrews begs. 

“I can’t,” says Fred.

Fred’s mother leaves them together to start the A/C in the car. Hal sees the tears in her eyes and knows he wasn’t supposed to see. Fred stays where he is, looking at nothing. 

Hal looks at the half-banana on the counter. He knows with a depressing, mundane burst of clairvoyance that no one will throw it out or eat it. He puts it in the garbage before it can go black in the heat. 

Fred makes it two steps out of the front door and then hunches over above the withered flower bushes, his arms wrapped around his stomach. 

“Don’t throw it up,” Hal pleads, “Come on, buddy. You need that.” 

He looks away just in case, but Fred only stands crouched there for a moment and then straightens up, looking peaky and miserable, but intent. He tugs his ball cap low over his eyes. 

Hal squeezes his shoulder. 

Hal reads six pamphlets cover-to-cover while Fred’s in the examining room. The waiting area is painted a bizarre lilac, with pictures of flowers on the walls. After a long while, Fred and his mother come back. Mrs. Andrews smiles at Hal. 

“I’m going to go pull the car around,” she says. 

“Mom-“ Fred speaks up, annoyed. “You don’t have to. I can walk.” 

“It’s okay,” says Hal, and then touches Fred’s back, the way he does with Alice when she’s upset. “It’s okay.” 

Fred sits obediently down and picks up a pamphlet. He crushes it in his hand instead of reading it. Hal eyes the door the doctor had disappeared through.

“Stay here,” he says to Fred.

Pushing through the door gives him an awful tickle of nerves. Hal’s never been one to let himself into places that are off-limits. The specialist is sitting at her desk, writing on a pad of paper. 

“Can I help you?” 

“I’m with Fred Andrews. He’s eighteen. No-” Hal mentally adds the birthday he’d missed. “Nineteen. He was just in.” 

The doctor nods. 

“Can you just tell me how he’s doing?” Hal takes a deep breath, anxiety crawling in his gut. “Just - is he going to be okay?” 

“I think so.” She has glasses on a long chain around her neck, and she puts them on now. “He’s able to admit he’s struggling, and he seems determined to get better. In that way, he’s better off than most of my patients.”

A door bangs at the other side of the room, and someone else enters. The doctor puts up her finger to stop them, but Hal is already retreating. 

“Thank you,” Hal breathes, and hurries backward out the door. 

His heart skips a beat when he steps back into the waiting room and finds Fred’s chair vacant. He all but runs into the bathroom and finds him standing against the wall, arms folded across his chest. 

“I didn’t throw up,” Fred says accusingly, in response to Hal’s panic. 

Hal swallows. “The doctor says you’re going to be okay.” 

“I know,” says Fred, looking disinterested.  

“She says you’re going to be able to get better.” 

“I know,” Fred repeats again. He looks at Hal suddenly as though seeing him for the first time. “Hal?” 

“Yeah?” 

“Do you maybe-” Fred looks down at the ground. “You wanna stay over tonight?” 

Hal smiles. “Like a sleepover?” 

“Yeah,” Fred echoes. “Like that.” 

* * *

Fred begs to drink another meal replacement for dinner, but Mrs. Andrews insists on making him a real meal. Hal leaves halfway through their argument to drive home for a change of clothes. He pulls his old school backpack out of his closet, and is hit with a wave of deja-vu so strong that he feels momentarily disoriented. 

Prudence had bought him not one, but two foam-topped mattress pads to make his dorm room more comfortable. Hal wraps up the one they’d left behind up with bungee cords and packs it into the car. 

He leaves it leaning against the wall of Fred’s bedroom when he gets back to the Andrews house. When he walks back down the stairs, it’s in time to see Fred storm out of the kitchen and shove his way past him. “It’s too much,” Hal can hear him shouting. “It’s too much!” 

Hal waits until he hears the attic door slam. Then he hovers in the doorway of the kitchen and looks at the food his friend had left behind on his plate. The crust of bread seems impossibly insignificant. Looking at the half-empty plate for too long makes bile rise in the back of Hal’s throat. Mrs. Andrews has her elbows on the table and her head down in her hands. 

When she catches Hal looking she gives him a tired smile. 

“Are you hungry, Hal?” she asks. 

“No,” says Hal, his mouth dry. If he tried to eat anything he thinks he’d throw up. “I ate.” 

Fred is curled in a ball on his blankets when Hal gets to the top floor, clutching his stomach. Hal taps gently on the doorframe. 

“Fred?” he asks cautiously. “Do you want me to go?” 

“No,” says Fred. “Stay.” 

Hal takes a few cautious steps into the room. His eye lands on a record player, the needle stuck and skipping at the very end. 

“Still listening to the Boss?” asks Hal. He puts the needle down, and the music that drifts out is crackly and rough. 

“Fred, this record is all warped.” Hal says.  

“Played it out,” mumbles Fred from the mound of blankets. Hal frowns and takes the needle off. 

Fred’s desk is heaped with a stack of papers, black with writing. Hal reaches out and runs his thumb over them. The messy scrawl has the look of a very long and desperate letter. He’s about to ask who they’re for when his eye lands on FP’s name. 

“I wrote him,” says Fred quietly. Hal turns to see his eyes glimmering at him from the bed. “Every day in the summer. I still write.” 

“How many are there?”

“Dunno. Lots.” 

“Why don’t you send them?” 

“We weren’t talking when he left,” says Fred quietly. “He didn’t give me an address.” 

Hal feels tears building behind his eyes. “Fred, get up for a sec. Just a second.” 

Fred gets up and stands hunched over against the wall while Hal unrolls the mattress topper onto his bed. It’s two layers of memory foam. 

“Are you okay?”

“My stomach feels like it’s going to break,” says Fred, in his dull voice. “But yeah.” 

Hal pulls the fitted sheet back down over the padding and fluffs out the duvet. 

“There. Like the princess and the pea.” 

“The what?” 

“The - nevermind.” 

Hal excuses himself to change into pyjamas. When he steps back in the room, Fred’s on his duvet again, curled in a ball. Hal climbs into bed next to him and lays on his back. 

“Are you ok?” 

“No,” says Fred in a tiny voice. 

Hal reaches out and places the palm of his warm hand against Fred’s stomach. 

“Does this help?”

“A little.” 

Hal lies awake for most of the night, his eyes on the ceiling. He can hear Fred tossing fitfully beside him, fading in and out of sleep. Around three in the morning he hears Fred wake up. Fred says nothing to him, but he can hear the weight of his silence, too heavy to be sleep. 

“Hal?” Fred whispers after a long time. 

“Yeah?” Hal whispers back. 

Fred swallows. “You wanna sneak out with me and go walk around?” 

Hal bites back the urge to tell him that’s not a good idea. “I don’t think I’ve ever snuck out before.” 

“I’ll teach you,” says Fred weakly, and Hal smiles. 

“Where would we go?” 

“The bridge,” says Fred softly, and Hal goes quiet. 

“Okay,” he says finally. “Okay.” 

* * *

Their bridge is the same after all these years: rotting and crumbly in places, but it holds. The same years-old bike lock dangles, rusted out, from the rail. 

Hal eyes up the slats between the bridge railing and wonders if his thighs will still fit through them. Probably, he decides, if he forces it, but he risks a ton of slivers that way. Fred makes no effort to sit, anyway, simply gripping the rail and standing still. Hal stands beside him. 

“I was reading those pamphlets,” Hal offers, trying to help. “It says if you have a hobby you can take your mind off it. Maybe you could play baseball again. Or-” 

Fred shakes his head tightly. “No.” 

“But, Fred-” 

Fred sighs and leans onto the rail. “That’s how it started.” 

Hal’s stomach turns sour. “What?”

“I got drafted. Out of school. For the Greendale team. And I wasn’t able because of my dad, and that’s fine, right? That’s whatever. But I didn’t have any reason to play after that.” 

Fred’s voice has the pained gravity of a confession. Hal stays quiet. Listens. 

“And the whole time I’m taking care of my dad, I’m thinking, I’m losing it. Getting out of shape, right? And in a couple months I know I won’t be at my peak anymore.  But if I watch what I eat - if I count, and I stay thin-” 

“Then maybe you’ll have a shot,” Hal finishes for him, understanding.

Fred nods. “‘Cause I want to believe in my head I’m still good enough to go pro. Even when I’m not.” 

“Fred, if you want it that bad, you’ll get another shot.” 

“That’s just the thing, I don’t. I don’t care if I’m a baseball player. I like what I do. I’m glad I’m with my dad. The baseball thing - it wouldn’t have lasted. It’s nice, but it’s whatever.” He lifts his shoulders in a shrug. “I just want to know that I could have done it. That I could have been someone.” 

Fred blinks out at the water, his eyes red and glassy with tears. “This past year, it’s been like- I’m too big for this town,” he says, finally, his voice shaking. “Or it’s too small for me. And I just want -” He strikes the bridge with the heel of his hand, too frail even to shake it. “I just want things to go back to how they used to be.” 

“Fred,” says Hal softly, and tugs his hand down before he can hit the bridge again. He laces their fingers and grips tight. Fred’s palm is warm where he’d driven it into the wood. 

“And it’s what I said to you earlier,” says Fred quietly, looking away from him. “I make up rules for myself. If I don’t eat for a week, then FP will come home. If I don’t eat for a week, then my dad will live that long. Do you get it? And if I mess up, I feel like - I’m breaking the balance. I’m letting it all fall apart.” 

Hal tries to speak, but finds he can’t make a sound over the lump in his throat. Fred stares down at the water below them. 

“We used to come here when we were kids. I want to be a kid again. I want to be-“

“Small?” Hal offers, trying to understand. 

“No. Just happy.”

Tears are streaming freely down Hal’s cheeks now. “Fred-” 

“I’m happy when I’m with my dad. And when I’m with you. But the rest of the time-“

“Hey,” Hal interrupts quietly “Do you remember sitting here with me, senior year? 

Fred snorts weakly. “Yeah. You woke me up at three in the morning.” 

Hal nods, slowly. “I didn’t know if you’d remember. I had no one that day. It was, like, the worst day of my life. And you just - got out of bed in the middle of the night for me. For someone you hardly even knew.” 

“Well, you looked pretty pathetic.” 

“You’re a good person.” 

Fred looks down at the stream. “I get so angry at myself. I hate the voice in my head.” 

“It’s not you.” Hal holds him tighter. “I have that voice too. It’s not you. You’re gonna fight it. I know you.” 

“You wanna know something?” Hal nods, and Fred looks away from him. “Right before FP left. I told him that if he joined the army I would kill myself.” He turns to Hal, desperate. Tears are welling up in his eyes.  “You have no idea the shit we said to each other before he left. We were always fighting. But that one-” 

Hal feels like he’s been punched in the chest. “Is that why you’re doing this?” 

“No! I don’t know.” Hal watches a tear run the length of Fred’s chin and drip onto his shirt. “All I know is that if I never see him again, that’s the last thing I told him.”

Hal holds him tight. “If I said something like that to Alice- she’d know I didn’t mean it. No matter how mad I was.”

“It’s not the same.”

“Why not?”

Fred doesn’t reply. Hal takes a deep breath when he doesn’t trust himself not to cry. 

“Are you okay?” Fred asks quietly, and Hal almost laughs. 

“I don’t wanna leave you.” 

“You have to. You’re in school.” 

“And Easter’s soon.” Hal gulps. “Call me every day until Easter. You promise? 

“Promise.” 

“Fred, are you going to be -” 

“Yeah.” Fred looks away. “Support groups. I’ll go to therapy. I’ll eat. I’ll figure it out.” 

“Fred - you’re saying this now, but for all I know you’re going to relapse as soon as I’m back at school. I don’t know how to make sure you get better.” 

“I’ll do it,” Fred says stubbornly. The wind whistles through the trees and he shivers. “It’s time to get better.” 

“You’re not alone, okay?” 

Fred nods, ducking his head to wipe his eyes. Hal very gently turns him around so that they’re facing each other. 

“You’re gonna be okay,” he whispers, as Fred buries his face in his neck. Fred’s fine hair is soft under his chin, and he holds him as tight as he can. “You’re gonna be okay. You’re gonna get better.”

Fred’s skinny arms wrap around him, holding tight to his back. “You’re gonna be okay,” Hal whispers again, and Fred holds him so tightly that his bones ache. 

* * *

Hal’s cautious about encouraging too much exercise over the next few days, but he does ask Fred to play baseball with him. He reasons that he’s bad enough at it that it’ll be like coaching a child. Fred smiles tolerantly and agrees. 

Fred actually doubles over laughing at his first throw. “Hal, you’re not even gripping it right! Here.” 

He crosses to Hal’s side and helps him, rotating the ball in his grip. “This is your basic grip. Just hold it just like that.” 

“It doesn’t feel natural.” 

“It will.” Fred backs up and holds out his mitt. “Throw it to me.” 

Hal does. Fred looks exasperated. 

“Please tell me you were goofing the throw so I’d feel better. It’s not shot put.” 

“Figures. Shot put I can do.” Hal picks up the baseball and tosses it underhand to him. “It was the only track and field event I ever signed up for.” 

Fred laughs and comes back to his side, squeezing his arm playfully. In the sunlight, it feels almost normal, like they’re two friends goofing off at the end of the day. “You were in the four-hundred-meter dash. And I know that because we were in it together.” 

“Yeah, do you remember the part where I had an asthma attack and had to drop out?” 

“Of course I do. It’s my favourite memory because we got to see all the trucks with the sirens on them.”

“And then after that, I wasn’t allowed to do track and field anymore.” Hal picks up a medium-sized rock and mimes throwing it. “My mom said no.” 

“Except for shot put.” Fred finishes.

Hal lets go and watches the rock sail out from his hand. 

“You got some distance,” Fred admits and then tugs on Hal’s sleeve like a child. “Show me how to do it. I always did the high jump.” 

Hal puts the baseball in Fred’s hand and puts his arms around him, tensing up as the hard angles of his friend’s body crash into his own. Fred steps back with him, loose and obedient, letting Hal guide him. 

“You step back like this,” Hal narrates, tugging Fred along with him. “And then you-”

“Throw” finishes Fred, laughing abruptly, and Hal files it away as one of the most hopeful sounds he’s heard in a while. Fred's laugh carries him back somewhere safe and old, to something of the childhood that's been eroding for him like sand. 

Hal’s picking up another heavy rock when he gets a brainstorm. “Fred, you wanna lift weights with me?”

“What?” 

“It’s not too hard, and you can build up muscle.” 

Fred considers it. “If you show me how.” 

“Deal,” says Hal, and watches Fred pick up the baseball, all ease and practice, a bigness and a smallness in the gesture at the same time. 

Hal thinks of the puzzle they did once of the night sky. All the pieces blue. 

Howd they'd fit, perfectly and just right. 

 

**Author's Note:**

> [Project Heal](https://www.theprojectheal.org/)
> 
>  
> 
> [Beat Eating Disorders UK](https://www.beateatingdisorders.org.uk/recovery-information)
> 
>  
> 
> [National Eating Disorders Association](https://www.nationaleatingdisorders.org/where-do-i-start-0)
> 
>  
> 
> [resource list of links to eating disorder organizations and websites](https://www.eatingdisorderhope.com/information/resources-for-anorexia-bulimia-and-binge-eating-disorder)
> 
>  
> 
> [physical signs and symptoms of eating disorders](https://www.nationaleatingdisorders.org/toolkit/parent-toolkit/physical-signs)
> 
>  
> 
> Usually, the best way to find help online is searching for "eating disorder resources" which should specify the results to your area.


End file.
